Sands of Tchavaal

Where the were-jackals feast upon your carcass

29. july - 26. august

Fear spreads among the citizens of Carani when one night, the moon turns red. Shortly thereafter, orc raids on the caravans going north towards Vhol increase substantially. Even worse, sporadic reports start coming in of the dead walking in the desert.

Our heroes journey through the desert, enduring orc raids and battling the dead. An especially brutal orc tribe have begun following an old deity named Urfestra, the King of the Eternal Hunt under the Moon and Lord of the Werejackals. He has recently surfaced after being imprisoned by the Samarines for milennia. His followers are preventing the dead from going to rest, desecrating the ground and animating their bones to aid them in their hunt.

After killing the tribes shaman and finding an abandoned camp, the heroes come upon a vault with a cracked seal. After close examination, and a return trip to the city to visit Math’navi at the library, they decide to investigate the vault, on the suspicion that it may be Urfestras prison. They brave dangerous traps and fight the horrors guarding the vault, until they come upon a second seal, leading to a vault withing the vault.

They enter to find Urfestra, starved, weak and hungering for their souls. Even in this state he proves a terrible opponent, but after a coordinated offensive from our heroes the beast lies beaten.

When strangely fervent orc attacks threaten to ruin the desert outpost Trader’s Rest, Qutayba, Gaston and Tariq join a relief expedition sponsored by the worried merchants of Carrani. There the orcs, our heroes, cryptic Trackers, an old foe in a dubious disguise, and the infamous killer Ibrahim Jibari all collide for possession of an unlikely prize. What is the secret of that goddammn carpet, and is it worth a mad chase across the desert to uncover?

Four young street urchins have gone missing, and the drowned body of a young boy was recently found in the Southern Docks area of the city. Haquim, Gaston, Qutayba, Shamus and Ochimin are hired by the Church of the Sublime Hand to investigate. The clues eventually lead them to believe that the workings of the Yellow Man are involved, and a prophetic vision of a burning lighthouse on an islet is fullfilled as our heroes uncover a terrible plot of abuse, abduction and murder.

Staggering their way home in a drunken stupor after having attended Azim’s birthday party, Gaston, Lem and Opium are kidnapped and barely manage to fight their way out of a dungeon full of demon-fuelled machinery.

A crate of precious metal bars has been stolen from the merchant Azim and subsequently tracked to the abode of a sorcerer named Shatwa Sudain. Due to lack of evidence, however, our heroes are hired to break into the mansion and find the goods for themselves.

The Festival of Thousand Joys is celebrated in Carani, with copious amounts of nudity and pyrotechnics involved. Afterwards, our heroes Shamus, Mathnawi, Haquim and Qutayba are hired by mysteriously masked benefactors to investigate and sabotage whomever or whatever the renowned bandit Kasmir the One-Eyed is meeting in an abandoned manor house outside the city. Yet, a brief encounter with some cultists and a spider-legged, leprous infant quickly sends both our heroes and Kasmir on the retreat.

An archaelogist and personal friend of Azim has gone missing and Mathnawi, Gaston, Lem, Tariq and Qutayba are called in to investigate. The search eventually leads our heroes to believe that a mendicant order of monks known as the Brotherhood of Famine are responsible. Infiltrating their alms house, however, turns out to be a lot more frightening and dangerous than they had bargained for.

Lem, Nasr, Gaston and Haquim are hired to look into the theft of a powerful artifact called a sending stone. They come upon a cavern haunted by ravenous water elementals, sent by a powerful outsider to serve as the thief’s minions. Water elementals in the desert prove to be a bad idea, and they are left to hunt the inhabitants of Tchavaal for moisture to avoid drying up.

An oasis near a Nomad encampment has mysteriously dried up, and our heroes are called in to investigate. Clues and sightings lead them into the Mastaba of Evil Spirits, from wherein they only barely manage to escape alive, still somewhat uncertain of whether or not they actually managed to uncover the truth behind the dried-up oasis.